In 2010,
Dan Gilbert excoriated basketball player LeBron James’s decision to sign with the Miami Heat, calling it “cowardly,” “narcissistic,” and a “shameful display of selfishness and betrayal.” Gilbert was not merely an aggrieved fan, however. He was the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team James was leaving.

Four years later Gilbert is still the owner, and James is now back. The two profess the past is behind them but still, those are thoughts Gilbert has made clear he wishes he’d never expressed. If Gilbert can take any solace in his boneheadedness, though, it’s that he’s not alone. People who should know better — people of power, wealth, and fame — say the stupidest things. They’re helping to give new life to an old cottage industry: the art of the apology. But better, however, would be never to say these things in the first place.

A few days ago, Malaysian politician Bung Moktar Radin congratulated Germany on its recent World Cup win: “Well done … bravo … long live Hitler,” he tweeted. Last month the US Department of Education posted a photo of actor Kristen Wiig, looking obviously intoxicated in a scene from “Bridesmaids,” with a caption saying, “Help me, I’m poor.” “If this is you,” warned the department, “then you better (apply for financial aid).” Also last month, TV viewers saw horse owner Steve Coburn let loose, saying owners who didn’t enter their horses in the first two races of the Triple Crown had taken “the coward’s way out.”

All well and good, I suppose. But still, the offending comments were made. Some — such as the Department of Education post — were just inadvertent or lame jokes. Others — such as MSNBC’s tweet — were likely more deeply felt. Either way, what once would have been boorish thoughts heard or seen by just a few, are now, with stunning rapidity, spread worldwide as stories, tweets, posts, or emails passed on from one user to the next. That’s what happened to public relations rep Justine Sacco, who last December tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” immediately before boarding an 11-hour flight to Cape Town. By the time she landed, her tweet had become a worldwide obsession and her job had been lost.

Dan Gilbert wrote and posted his screed in the heat of the moment following LeBron’s much anticipated “Decision.” Coburn the horseman faced the cameras emotionally distraught from his loss. Competing for ever more followers and influence, Twitter and other social media encourage users’ desperate efforts to be distinctive or outrageous.

There’s much to like about instantaneous communication, but not, perhaps, about thoughts instantly expressed. An old piece of advice runs through my head every time I see these now-familiar routines of offending statements and heartfelt apologies: Sleep on it. That notion runs counter to the immediate-response ethos of social media, but it’s worth reviving. Edit thyself. Few of us are so smart or clever that we always get it right the first time.